A message from Triovest, a Colliers Company:
ATCO Centre Edmonton's journey to recognition as one of Canada's most energy-efficient office buildings has depended in part on three things: lights, windows, and water.
In 2014, the building's management started retrofitting the lighting grid and replacing pot lights and bulbs with LEDs. In 2019, it installed a LightSweep system, which leaves areas unlit until someone enters. The management team also worked with the building's tenant, ATCO, to determine when certain floors, including the parking garage, didn't need to be lit at all.
"There was a lot of tenant engagement," said Andrew Tonner, who was ATCO Centre Edmonton's building operator from 2018 to 2022. "We squeezed every minute we could out of off-business hours where we could turn those lights off."
A group from Tokyo once came for a tour to get a sense of its inner workings after hearing about the building's LEED and ENERGY STAR achievements, Tonner said. "That was super cool to have that recognition from somewhere else in the world. It just amazed me," he said.
Re-glazing ATCO Centre Edmonton's windows started in 2018. It takes a long time to overhaul that part of such a large building, especially when there's just a small window of time each year to get the windows from a specialty manufacturer. The new windows, which have a darker, bluer tint than the old ones, offer improved insulation and reduced thermal conductivity.
The washrooms — one of the biggest energy-loss areas for office buildings — were the focus of upgrades in 2020. Faucets and drain lines were brought up to modern standards to reduce the use of water and the energy to heat it. It's an area rewarded by constant vigilance, Tonner suggested.
"We were always on top of our maintenance, like it was an inspection every day," he said. Paying close attention to energy use in the washrooms allowed the team to know what kind of upgrades to implement. "That was a big one," he said, "the routine schedules on that just to make sure everything was going as it should."
Upgrades to all these systems are ongoing. Just this year, the building underwent a lighting study by Calgary-based Elevate Lighting to see what's been working well and what could be improved in the future. The key throughout is collaboration, said Ashwin Iyer, who has been ATCO Centre Edmonton's building operator since 2022.
"It is the alignment of our property management, the ownership, as well as our tenant," he said. "Everyone is aligned in saving energy."
Watch this space next week for more on the systems that help ATCO Centre Edmonton stay green.